1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus for cleaning a gun barrel of various self-propelled artilleries which are long-range firepower, and more particularly, to an automatic cleaning apparatus for a gun barrel, in which a brush comes in contact with an inner surface of the barrel to remove an alien substance while the brush moves inside the barrel.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In various self-propelled artilleries and towed howitzers, it is important for gun crews to have skilled and trained marksmanship. In particular, the maintenance of such expensive equipments is very important. The self-propelled artilleries and towed howitzers are limited to disassembly and lubrication whenever they are repaired and maintained, as compared with common rifles such as individual carrying firearms.
In particular, the cleaning and washing of the gun barrel takes a lot of hard work. A fabric is wound around one end of a long barrel cleaning rod, and the repetitive pushing/pulling operation of the barrel cleaning rod into/from the gun barrel removes rust from the gun barrel or alien substances remained on the gun barrel after firing.
The above cleaning process is hardly performed by several crews. Also, since a lot of time is consumed to perform the cleaning operation, many drawbacks happen in time of wars which requires quick cleaning.
In order to solve the above problems, a new automatic cleaning apparatus for a gun barrel has been proposed by the applicant (see Korean Patent No. 10-0377487), a cross-sectional view of which is shown in FIG. 1.
Referring to FIG. 1, the conventional automatic cleaning apparatus for the gun barrel includes a drive unit 20 having a plurality of drive wheels 22 and 22-1 to generate a driving force, the drive wheels being spaced on the outer surface of a cylindrical case 10 and cooperated with drive motors 20a and 20b provided in front and rear inner parts of the case, a cleaning unit 30 interposed between the two drive motors 20a and 20b and having a frictional member coupled to a connector linearly moved by the rotational force of the front drive motor 20a, the frictional member being repeatedly linearly moved on the outer surface of the case to remove an alien substance from the inner surface of the gun barrel, and a spray unit 40 for dispensing a cleaning solution, which is stored in a cleaning container, in fine grains from the front part of the frictional member by continuous movement of a piston cooperated with the connector.
As can be seen from Korean Patent No. 10-0377487, reference numeral 30 denotes a cleaning unit, 21 denotes a front shaft, 21-1 denotes a rear shaft, 21adenotes a worm gear, 21b denotes a first bevel gear, 11 denotes a battery, 34adenotes a second bevel gear, and 50 denotes a non-woven fabric layer, respectively.
According to the conventional apparatus, the spray unit is cooperated with the reciprocating motion of the piston to suck in the cleaning solution and dispense it. The linear motion of the piston is associated with the cleaning unit. Therefore, the interconnection structure of the units is very complex, which causes frequent failures.
In addition, plural check valves are required to pump the cleaning solution out of the cleaning container, so that the construction is complicated. Also, since the cleaning unit is connected to the spray unit, if a problem happens in any one of the connections, a problem may happen in another connection, which causes a serious failure over the whole equipment.